Image2Surface Fusion First Attempt

[mrkandangi]

So I grabbed an old photo of my kids and brought it into F360 to try out the script file 'image2surface' to create a file. This is it. Not very good but I can recognize them . I have since taken a picture of myself and processed it the same way in F360 using a black background and plan on cutting it tonight, hoping for much better results. My new avatar is generated by F360 and what I plan on cutting.  I will share results tomorrow (if it is worthy)

[Derek the Admin]

I wasn't aware that someone had made this script. How long has it been out? I don't know that it will every get to the level that the purpose built pic processing programs are at, but this is a really encouraging thing to see. Let us know how the new cut goes. Also, I'm not sure what the settings look like in this add-in, but I bet you'll see better contrast if you give it more Z range. IE: Bottom is -10mm, top is 0mm. I'm not sure if it works that way or not though.

[mrkandangi]

Derek,

I am new to this and there may be better image processing freeware out there but I I have not researched them. If anyone can direct me it would be very helpful. I think this script is a bit old but I found it through a google search and tried it. After trying this with a black background and whiter foreground (my avatar), I seemed to have better results on the screen, although it took some time to process within F360. My setting for the new image was  .25mm stepover and 2mm height. (I don't remember what the setting was for my original post of my kids.)

(Yay, I am a junior member now )


Mark

[Derek the Admin]

There's not a whole lot out there in terms of free image processing software for making g code. There is halftoner, which will use a series of small dots of varying depths and spacing (I think) to render an image that can be viewed from afar. Then there is dmap2gcode that does grayscale depthmap images. There is more to it than just a black and white image however. Someone more well versed in the digital arts like Jody or Andrew might be able to speak more to that.

[jreimers]

dmap2gcode means depth map to G Code. A depth map is a greyscale image where the white areas are consider high points and the black areas are low points. The greys depending on how light or dark they are are varying degrees of height. There are lots of greyscale images out there that can be downloaded however nothing of any use is out there to take a photo that already exists and turn it into a depth map. You can simulate a depth map with 2 lights when you take a photo however by placing one on each side of your subject and focusing both on the front letting the light fall off towards the rear. Then take a back and white (greyscale) photo.

[mrkandangi]

After taking my picture with black background I processed the image in F360 using the add-in script 'image2surface', then converting to 't-spline from quad mesh' and carved this into Maple using a 1/4" ball rough and 1/16" ball finish. Not great, but seemed to come out okay using free software.

Attachment Deleted

[Bruce]

interesting that Fusion can do photo carving at all!

[Jerry]

Jody is completely right. It is not obvious at first that engraving a photo is not exactly right.

If the frames of the glasses are black, the mill will cut in to the head and make it lower. That looks wrong.

If the frames are white, the milling will be higher bulging out from the head, so it will be proper 3d shaped.


cnc4free.org has some software. Can you take a photo and make a real depthmap from it? I think so.




(it is still amazing and fun to do this kind of engraving, it sure is less work than a chisel and hammer).

[mrkandangi]

There is an option to 'invert image' within the script file which I assume would do just as it states, milling light colors more and darker colors milled less, but I have not tried that. Looking at my first attempt (the image of my children), there was less contrast between black and light but it seemed to outline them okay. We were going to do a family portrait to send out as presents to family, but my wife's hair is black so it would look weird have her hair be milled out more than her face (she did offer to color it blonde). Either way, being a noob, I a happy with the results.

[Mototech]

You could use a photochop program like gimp to change the color of the image features you want to be higher or lower in your carving.

www.gimp.org/

I have meshcam pro and like to convert my image to grey scale and save it as a .bmp file with gimp before importing it into meshcam. Please note, I have not as of yet actually carved any images with meshcam. For I am never happy with how long the estimated machining time is and the simulated surface finish that the cutviewer mill program shows. But I keep making progress and learning from each attempt.